Landscape has a generous capacity for standing as a metaphor for human experience. Especially the play of light and dark.
At present because of my Chronic fatigue Syndrome I am subject to high levels of stress, this is for two reasons, firstly because the stress response in my body is running way too fast, I mostly feel a background level of stress akin to that of waiting for a job interview to start, although I am learning techniques to dial it down, and the second reason being that I have lost my job, home, and security because of this illness. I am generally a positive person, and I have a loving wife and strong faith, but waiting in hope rather than fear is hard to maintain with Chronic Fatigue.
Hope and fear contend in my soul.
Sometimes I do not know which will win.
The falling of evening shadows over the fields last evening pictured this for me, the seeming sympathy of the landscape even comforted me. I often converse with the landscape in this way, or rather perhaps God at times speaks in ways our hearts understand better than our minds.
This morning I came across this prayer by Francis Paget, which also speaks to my situation,
Set free, O Lord, the souls of Your servants from all restlessness and anxiety. Give us that peace and power which flow from You. Keep us in all perplexity and distress, that upheld by Your strength and stayed on the rock of Your faithfulness, we may abide in You now and evermore. Amen.
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